Petty Treason (8 page)

Read Petty Treason Online

Authors: Madeleine E. Robins

BOOK: Petty Treason
5.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“And where were you when you husband’s body was discovered, ma’am?” Miss Tolerance asked.
The widow set her chin. “I was asleep.”
If she expected Miss Tolerance to take exception to this answer she was disappointed. “Do you know what time your husband retired on the night prior to his death, ma’am?”
The widow gave a sniff that might have been supposed to express amusement. “I live a little withdrawn, Miss Tolerance. That night, like most nights, we dined, my husband left, I did a little sewing, the tea tray was brought in at half past nine, and I went upstairs directly afterward.” She nodded in the direction of an embroidery frame that stood near the fireplace.
“You did not hear your husband come in in the night?”
“My husband and I do not share—did not share—a room.”
“But someone would know what time your husband returned to the house,” Miss Tolerance persisted.
“I imagine Beak would. Or my husband’s valet, except that the last one left a sennight before. Jacks had been assisting Etienne until a new man could be hired. My husband spoke very feelingly upon the subject of Jacks’ shortcomings.”
Miss Tolerance had been wondering whether there would be mention of a valet. “You did not name the valet when you gave the servant’s names, ma’am.”
“Did I not? I suppose I didn’t think of Norris after he left—he was hired away to Leicestershire.”
“Had he any reason to dislike the chevalier, ma’am?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny shook her head. “You mean, could he have borne my husband a grudge? He was offered a good deal of money to travel out of the city. And even if he did dislike my husband, he was in Leicestershire when my husband died.”
“The mail coach runs quite regularly to and from Leicestershire, ma’am,” Miss Tolerance said mildly. “Your own maid also sleeps in the house?”
“Yes. In the servants’ quarters on the top floor. Sophia retired after I did.”
Miss Tolerance nodded, made note, and changed her tack. “You say that your husband went out most evenings. Do you know where your husband went on that night, ma’am?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny shook her head. “He rarely told me unless—”
“Unless?”
“Unless he thought he could cause me pain by doing so, Miss Tolerance.” The widow pursed her mouth. “It pleased my husband to tell me about his women—their names and the things he did with them. I learned not to mind, or to give no sign that I minded, but even that did not please him. If he could not hurt me that way, he found other ways.”
Half a dozen questions occurred to Miss Tolerance, but
Come back to them
, she thought.
“What were your husband’s other pastimes?”
“All the expensive ones of gentlemen, Miss Tolerance. Gaming and sport and drink. The vilest of the Fallen—oh dear, I beg your pardon!” Her tone changed as she recalled to whom she spoke. “I did not mean—”
“Of course not,” Miss Tolerance said. “Please proceed.”
“Etienne was rarely home of an evening. He had friends among the émigré set. That French widow Touvois—”
Miss Tolerance blinked. D’Aubigny an habitué of Madame Camille Touvois’ salon? It was not surprising that an émigré might be part of a circle hosted by another émigré, but nothing Anne d’Aubigny or her brother had said about the dead man had painted him with the sort of social, artistic or financial luster that would have made him welcome at one of the most celebrated—perhaps the proper word was notorious—liberal salons of the day.
Mrs. d’Aubigny continued. “He might have been there, or at his club, or in some horrid gaming den or with—with one of his women. Sometimes he said that there was work that kept him at Whitehall.”
“Do you think that he lied?”
“I do not know. Perhaps not.” The woman shook her head. A lock of pale hair came loose from her cap. “Why should he? I was not important enough to lie to.”
Miss Tolerance could think of nothing politic to say.
“Ma’am, this question may be difficult to answer, but I ask you
to consider carefully. Can you think of anyone who might have a reason to kill your husband?”
Anne d’Aubigny’s mouth twitched into a peculiar smile. “Rather say, can I think of anyone who might not.”
Oh, dear.
“Ma’am?”
“I am sorry, Miss Tolerance. Such an answer is likely worse than no answer at all. But the women he—the women. And the men he gambled with—my husband was not lucky at play. I imagine he owed a great deal everywhere in town. It was often difficult to pay the tradesmen. Lately he’d had a little luck—a few weeks ago he came home and threw a fold of paper money upon my desk. He said there would be more, but there was not.”
“Might he have borrowed that money, ma’am?”
“From whom? Oh, from a moneylender.” Anne d’Aubigny looked off into the hallway as if seeking answers there. “But would a moneylender come into our house and kill my husband?”
A fine question, Miss Tolerance thought. Mrs. d’Aubigny, she saw, was beginning to lose the animation that had briefly energized the discussion. The chime of the gilded clock that stood alone on the mantel gave her an excuse to bring the interview to an end.
“Ma’am, I shall surely wish to ask other questions of you later, but I will not take the whole of your afternoon. I should like to see your husband’s room, and then, may I speak with your staff?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny nodded. “If you wish. I shall instruct Beak. He will see to it.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Two last questions, then, and I shall leave you to rest. Who is the Mrs. Vose whom I met yesterday? She is not one of the staff?”
The widow’s cheeks flushed and she looked away from Miss Tolerance, toward the window, toward the fire, toward the door and, finally, to her own hands. “She is—that is, she’s my husband’s —his cousin.”
Miss Tolerance understood that Mrs. Vose was likely not the chevalier’s cousin nor any relation at all.
“And at what time that morning were you apprised of your husband’s death, ma’am?”
This question appeared to retrieve the widow abruptly from
some place she had wandered in her thoughts. “I beg your pardon, Miss Tolerance?”
“I note from the reports in the paper that Mary Pitt found your husband, Beak sent Jacks for the watch, the watch came at once and examined him. No one mentions you, ma’am. Nor did the coroner have you testify. This argues a conviction upon his part that you had little or no useful testimony to share.”
Mrs. d’Aubigny pursed her lips again. “I had taken a sleeping draught the night before, Miss Tolerance. I often have trouble sleeping, and when I have taken the draught I am rather thickheaded when I wake. I believe Sophia called me about nine o’clock in the morning, my usual time.”
“
Two hours
after the body was found?”
“Yes,” the widow said.
“Is that not rather odd, ma’am? Your husband had been killed in a dire manner here in your house, but the servants let you sleep after the discovery?”
Madame d’Aubigny’s lips trembled. She pursed them again, seeking to control herself. “Sophia and the others are very protective of me, Miss Tolerance. What could I have done, half-asleep and addled by my sleeping draught? Wrung my hands and had hysterics? It may have been an error in judgment, but it was kindly meant.”
There was that in the lift of her chin which said to Miss Tolerance that it was time to stop the interview. She rose and thanked her hostess.
“May I come to speak with you again?” Anne d’Aubigny nodded. “I thank you for your patience, ma’am.” Miss Tolerance curtsied. “If you will ask your servants’ cooperation in my inquiries I shall be grateful.”
Mrs. d’Aubigny rose and took up the handbell. Beak appeared at the first ring as if he had been waiting by the doorway. The staff indeed appeared most solicitous of their mistress.
“Beak, Miss Tolerance wishes to see the—the room. Then she will have some questions for you and the others about the day of—” she waved her hand, then brought it back to her lips as if to contain the word
murder.
“It will please me if you will be helpful to her.”
She did not wait to hear the man’s “Yes, madam.” She turned
back to Miss Tolerance, and this time offered her hand. “I must thank you for your efforts, Miss Tolerance. You will let me know what you learn?”
Miss Tolerance curtsied in lieu of agreement and took her leave. She had a good deal to think about.
 
 
B
eak led Miss Tolerance to the first floor with a posture which suggested outrage. She was sympathetic: if for days he had been fending off strangers who wished to gape at the sight of the murder room, what was he to make of a woman who demanded—and was given the right!—to examine the room closely? She did not apologize aloud, but resolved to make her investigation as efficient as possible, to avoid antagonizing the man further. He might be of considerable help to her in the days to come; best not to lose his goodwill at once.
The chevalier’s chamber was in the front of the house. It was a large, square room furnished in a heavy old-fashioned style. The drapes, now drawn and admitting wintry light, were a pale, frosty brown; the bed-curtains were of the same material. The bed itself had carved posts reaching nearly to the ceiling; there were a chest and garderobe in the same dark, carved wood. Miss Tolerance noted that not all the bed-curtains were in place; only the curtains at the foot and far side remained. From the description in the newspapers, Miss Tolerance surmised that the missing drapes had been smirched with blood and brains that no amount of laundering had been able to remove, and had been destroyed. There were neither sheets nor blankets upon the bed, and the feather ticking showed signs of an imperfect attempt to clean it. She gathered her skirt and dropped to one knee to examine the floor around the bed, and noted that sanding had not completely removed the stains there, either.
There were other commonplace furnishings of a gentleman’s room: writing desk, chairs, fire tools, mantel clock, toilet cabinet Everything was orderly and clean, but she had no idea if everything that ought to be in the room was there. The room was melancholy in its emptiness and very cold. When she exhaled, a plume of breath rose up before Miss Tolerance’s eyes.
“There was nothing taken? Nothing missing from the room after—”
Beak shook his head. “Nor I found nothing extra, miss. You’re wishful to talk to the staff, miss?”
Miss Tolerance sighed. They had quite reasonably wished to scrub away the marks of murder, but doing so had likely scrubbed away evidence that might have proved useful.
Would that I had seen this room that morning
, she thought.
Two weeks gone, now.
“Thank you, Beak. I should very much like to speak to each of you alone.”
Miss Tolerance spent the next several hours talking with the staff of the house in Half Moon Street, in a small room belowstairs usually reserved to Mr. Beak’s use. Mary Pitt, the maid who had discovered the murder, was a plain, moon-faced girl who had clearly come to enjoy her role in this important drama. What she had to say did not materially enlarge upon the report in the newspaper, but Pitt recited her piece with considerable relish, and details Miss Tolerance suspected had been added as telling piled upon telling.
The cook, Mrs. Sadgett, was tall and thin, unlike many of her calling. She treated Miss Tolerance’s interview as an insufferable interruption, giving her testimony with sniffs of aggravation, her lips pursed tight. When the master’s death had been discovered she had been in the midst of her baking, she reported. She had arrived in the house an hour or more before Mary Pitt found the body, and gone straight about her business like a good Christian woman. When Miss Tolerance released her, Mrs. Sadgett left the room without a further glance at her interlocutor.
Sophia Thissen, Anne d’Aubigny’s maid, was summoned downstairs by Beak. She was small—even shorter than Anne d’Aubigny, which made Miss Tolerance feel like a giantess—rosily plump, dressed neatly and without pretension in a brown stuff gown. Her eyes and hair were dark brown and her complexion dark; her vowels were Yorkshire with a veneer of London and gentility. She gave the impression that she might like to lean forward and straighten Miss Tolerance’s collar or smooth back any lock of hair which was unwise enough to stray from her bonnet. When the maid had accounted for her own whereabouts on the
night of the murder, Miss Tolerance asked the woman the same question she had asked her mistress.
“With your master dead in his sheets, why did no one think to wake Mrs. d’Aubigny until hours later?”
“He weren’t
my
master. And what could poor little Madam have done?” The maid shrugged. “Mary Pitt was crying and carrying on, the house was all a-maze. And I had brung Madam her medicine the night before,” she added. “The laudanum makes her sleep so deep it’s hard to rouse her, and when she’s waked she’s addled and not much good for anything. It wouldn’t have been a kindness. Had I waked her early she’d have had hysterics, and how would that have helped?”
Anne d’Aubigny might be correct that her staff was protective of her, Miss Tolerance thought, but her maid had more the tone of someone used to dealing with an idiot child.

Other books

The Few by Nadia Dalbuono
My Story by Elizabeth J. Hauser
Entranced by Nora Roberts
Thin Ice by Settimo, Niki
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Whole Latte Life by DeMaio, Joanne